G-shock/ Secret Wars press trip to Hamburg: Part One!

On Thursday and Friday I was invited by Frank PR to attend a G-shock press trip to Hamburg! (Hence why there have been no posts for nearly a week...) The event we were invited to see in particular is called 'Secret Wars' and involves two teams battling it out in an art-off. The basic idea is that two teams or crews get an adjoining wall each, and have 90 minutes to transform a blank white wall into a work of art using only paintbrushes. Whilst the concept for 'Secret Wars' is unique to a bunch of guys called Monorex (headed up by the mastermind Terry), the events themselves have been taking place for a few years in the UK, with this year seeing the Euro League, which saw us attend the London Vs Hamburg away event (its kinda like the euro league where there are away and home games...)

As those of you who follow me on Twitter will know, there were a few mishaps along the way (most notably a three car crash, less than five miles before the turn off for Gatwick) so half of us missed our flight... which is something I've never done before and I have to say, was a pretty stressful experience that I won't be keen to repeat. Our flight was scheduled to take off at 7:40am on Thursday and my mini group walked through the main entrance of Gatwick at 7:30am so it was a given that it just wasn't going to happen.

Luckily a member of the G-shock/ Casio team also got held up in the traffic so all was not lost. With a lot of hard work back in the office and from the airport (thanks guys!) the team managed to find another flight from Heathrow at 10:45am so to cut a long story short we made a mad dash for it and made it. It kinda worked out for the best as we had a little adventure to bond over and got the bonus of flying BA rather than Easyjet, so couldn't complain too much. It turns out we made up a bit of time (as the BA flight path was faster) so we were only a couple of hours behind the other half of the group, having only missed the sightseeing tour, which sucked a bit (as I've never been to Hamburg before) but I could have been sent straight home from Gatwick!

We caught up with everyone at lunch at a beautiful boat restaurant on the harbour. It was a beautiful fish restaurant and the food was great, as were the much deserved couple of pints we all put away, whilst basking in the 22degree heat, which was even better once we heard it was pissing down back in England – shame!

After lunch we headed towards the Casio HQ on the outskirts of Hamburg to have a look at the branded G-shock route master that was to ferry the artists to the venue later in the day. The bus was really cool with a fully functioning bar and disco lights on the top deck, and lots of cushions and seats on both decks.

There were branches of McDonald's everywhere... I kid you not... we must have seen about 30 different branches driving around for a few hours! And in the places where there weren't branches there was advertising a plenty.

After going to the supermarket to stock up on all things German (Beer, Beer, Beer and Haribo) we headed to our hotel, called 25hours hotel, which I absolutely fell in love with immediately! My room was massive and just so beautiful... it was so big that for a full five minutes (I kid you not) I couldn't find the loo and the pictures don't really do it justice. I loved everything from the wallpaper to the beanbag and the lamps and the power shower – brilliant! when I next go to Hamburg I'm not even going to Google any other hotel... I absolutely loved it. Modern, stylish boutique hotels who aren't afriad of hot pink are the future!

The outside:

The inside (reception area, the 'living room', the dining room and the bar):

My room:

Stay tuned for my write up of the 'Secret Wars' event coming tomorrow!